Brecksville's Brant Giere ready tofr the 2011 racing season

View full sizeMIKE KEZDI/SUN NEWSBrant Giere's No. 56 Porsche 944 will make its first 2011 appearance April 8 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio.

By now, the trailer is closer to Mansfield than its usual home off of Miller Road in Brecksville and the driver is getting a bit anxious.

It has been six months since Brecksville’s Brant Giere slid behind the seat of either one of his race cars and he is looking forward to what the 2011 season will bring.

Giere, a name many will recognize for its connection to Maple Crest Farms on Miller Road, has been racing some form of motorized vehicle since the age of 7.

It started out with a 50cc Honda motorcycle in motocross that his dad bought and he graduated to four wheel racing at 22.

“We’ve always liked competing,” Giere said of he and his sister Stacey. Stacey stuck with the family business and competes with horses while Brant chose motored racing.

Now Giere fields two cars in the Great Lakes Region of the National Auto Sport Association and he is actively involved in the Northern Ohio Region Porsche Club of America. Giere also takes his racing experience and teaches drivers education classes for both entities.

Giere’s sports car racing career started simple in 1988 with some Sports Car Club of America and Porsche Club events and in 1999 he made the move to NASA.

There, he races his 1991 Porsche 911 Cup Car which is a factory built racer. Much of its professional career was spent in Germany and France and Giere picked it up in 2002.

This year, between both Porsche Club and NASA, Giere will race seven or eight races with the 911 as well as handling the drivers education classes.

The second car in his automotive stable at Maple Crest Farms is a 1988 Porsche 944. This car Giere refers to as being a one-trick pony.

He purchased the 944 and built it into a race car. It made its first track appearance in 2008 and is only good in the NASA German Touring class.

“It’s a very fun series,” Giere said. He bought the 944 because he has six very close friends with identical cars and they all wanted to race together. In addition to being fun, the series has many competitors making it a strong series as well.

Being a grassroots racer, a term for amateur racers who do much of the work on their own, Giere says he enjoys seeing his strategies play out on the track. “It’s great when it works,” he said.

Of those strategies, making its debut this weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio will be a new aero package on the 944. This involves a new carbon fiber rear wing and a front splitter spoiler. The hope is to make the car more “slippery” as it goes around the track.

The theory is that with the car maxed out at its NASA specified power to weight ratio, this will help the 944 get around the track faster.

In Giere’s mind, if he can maintain his speed through a corner at 90 mph as opposed to 80, the project will be a success.

“I will consider that highly successful,” he said of the unproven addition. “A lot of times, there is a lot of trial and error.”

With both of the cars, Giere does what he can mechanically in Brecksville but major preparations are handled by Steinel’s Autowerks in Twinsburg.

Rounding out his volunteer Maple Crest Farms team are Jerry King of North Royalton who Giere refers to as his “right hand man,” Todd Schweikert of Seven Hills who owns a tool and die shop and Bill Douglas of Garfield Heights who is a pro at tuning Porsches and “reading tires.”

View full sizeCAROL SAHLEY/SPECIAL TO SUN NEWSBrant Giere also fields this No. 28 Porsche 911 Cup Car in several Porsche Club and NASA events.

As for his family, given the fact that horse show and car racing season run parallel, they are usually at a horse show while he is racing. They make it to the events when they have a chance.

The season begins April 8 at the Great Lakes Region season opener and Giere will race until October. Events will take him to Pennsylvania, Canada, Indiana, New York and Wisconsin as well as Ohio. Making 2011 more enjoyable is the number of races being held at Mid-Ohio — Giere’s home track.

With 23 years of racing under his, Giere will keep at it as long as he is not putting around the track.

As the saying goes he says, “There are bold race car drivers. There are old race car drivers. There are no bold, old race car drivers.”